Originally posted by FoosM
You are saying the rocket engines are still active?

When the first stage falls away, the engine you see is not active. The first stage is actually pulled back by retrorockets that fire opposite the
direction of travel. Then the ullage rockets fire on the adapter ring, pushing the second stage forward. While those are firing, the second stage's
J-2 engines start up. Then the adapter ring is jettisoned.

Originally posted by FoosM
Speaking of the white debris, what is that very bright white object
in the middle of the screen that is brighter than the clouds?
(I think I know what you are going to say)

Did you guess rocket plume? Thats the first stage's exhaust trail back in the dense part of the atmosphere.

Originally posted by FoosM
And why is the insulation flammable, what is it made from?
Also, the flame that shoots out from the tube is coming towards the rocket.
How is that possible? Shouldn't it be moving away from it?

I have no idea what the specific makeup of the material is. It comes out both sides because that's what happens when the interior of a cylinder open
at both ends ignites. It's not being ignited because the second-stage exhaust is moving through it (at least after it passes through the plume),
it's being ignited by the thermal radiation from the engine and plume. So the heating isn't going to exert any kind of directional force on it like
would happen if the exhaust plume was actually traveling through the ring.

Originally posted by FoosM
And if the engines are still active, why do the stages break away so slow and methodically?
I dont see a increase in speed. They just seem to break away on their own and float down not
being influenced by the rocket engines.

That's high-speed film. So it's showing things slower than they actually happened. Total time from first-stage separation to separation of the
interstage is 30 seconds. In the recorded footage, it takes about 2 minutes. So the camera is running about 4 times normal speed. Here's a video I
made which should show things roughly in real time: Video.

Originally posted by FoosM
Regarding the photography.
Why didnt it get damaged during reentry?

It was in a protective capsule. Although I believe some of the cameras did get damaged and some couldn't be located.

Originally posted by FoosM
I still would like to know how much film was in the camera(s) and who activated it to turn on.

They were activated by computer, as part of the separation sequence. As you can see they run out and get ejected, they only had about 40
seconds (in real time) of film in them.

Originally posted by FoosM
Why would NASA attribute those sequences to the other Apollo missions?

It's for illustrative purposes. There were no such cameras on any of
the manned missions. The separations would have looked pretty much the same.

Originally posted by FoosM
Why would NASA attribute those sequences to the other Apollo missions?

Yet another FALLACIOUS claim, earlier ( as yet another excuse to add more derisive

??) ---- as seen in countless other posting
examples.

Fallacious....by equating random YouTube clips from un-sourced documentaries as being of "NASA" origin.

Intentional deception....or a shockingly amazing lack of comprehension and thought? About the reality of filmmaking, and the use of "stock footage"
often times in their production. For illustrative and artistic purposes. NOT ALWAYS strictly technically accurate in each shot used,
in the context displayed for the intended audience.....in terms of specific missions being shown at any given time.

But, MOST people understand this. Therefore, the assertions...the fallacious assertions...about some sort of NASA "collusion" or
"fakery" continue to be egregious beyond words.....

Frank said "8,000 miles" which equals 12874km. Wiki says "The inner Van Allen Belt extends from an altitude of 100–10,000 km [7] (0.01 to 1.5
Earth radii) above the Earth's surface, and contains high concentrations of energetic protons with energies exceeding 100 MeV and electrons in the
range of hundreds of keV, trapped by the strong (relative to the outer belts) magnetic fields in the region."

And the outer belts, says Wiki, "The large outer radiation belt extends from an altitude of about three to ten Earth radii (RE) or 13,000 to 19,000
kilometres above the Earth's surface. Its greatest intensity is usually around 4–5 RE."

And Earth radii is according to Wiki, "Distances from points on the surface to the center range from 6,353 km to 6,384 km (≈3,947–3,968 mi)."

According to Frank Borman's recollection in this video, the originally planned 3rd Apollo mission would have been long duration, orbiting in space,
approximently 13km apogee, somewhere inside the 2-3km gap between the inner and outer VAB's.

Who planned that mission, Walt Disney?

edit on 1/13/2011 by SayonaraJupiter because: facts and figures

The Apollo 8 video is a goldmine indeed.

Note what Borman calls the Van Allen Belt:
The IONOSPHERE BELT.
He doesn't name it after Van Allen, but he also doesn't correctly place it in space.

The ionosphere is a portion of the upper atmosphere, between the thermosphere and the exosphere, distinguished because it is ionized by solar
radiation.

The VABs occur from the EXOSPHERE

This leads me to believe that Apollo 8, and subsequent missions, didnt go pass the IONOSPHERE, in other words LEO. But they did go through the South
Atlantic Anomaly.

The South Atlantic Anomaly is a phenomena that takes place in the ionosphere, at the magnetic equator, where the Van Allen radiation belt is
closest to Earth

On the subject of VABs...
I have had a problem with the claims that the transit through the VABs went quickly.
I have read estimates and claims that it would take minutes to about an hour, even an hour and half. My own initial estimates based on Apollo
transcripts brought me to about 2 hours. And later I found a source backing me up stating it took Apollo and hour in each belt. Which means Apollo
spent 4 hours in the belt. Possibly more, because I couldn't get confirmation how fast Apollo was moving on the return journey.

But still, it didnt make any sense.

I have to refer again to this picture:

If the size of the belts are close to a third of the way to the moon.
And it took Apollo 3 days to get to the moon... how could the spaceship
go passed the belts in a couple hours?

The moon is about 384,000 km
The radius of the Earth is about 6,371km
The Van Allen Belt extends to about 10 earth radii so thats 63,710 km.
Some sources claim 7 earth radii, but if I were sending astronauts to the moon, I would go with
worse case scenario.

So anyway, 384,000 km in 72 hours is about on average 5,333 kph
Thats under one Earth radii per hour.

If that is correct, and Ill be honest, my math skills suck.
It should take anywhere from 11 to 12 hours to pass the Van Allen Belts.
Right?

So when NASA claims they passed the belts in 30 minutes, or an hour each, etc.
Maybe they mean the most intense region. That would make sense if a region of the belt
is about one Earth radii wide. Though that doesn't mean that the other regions of the belt are any better for spaceships and soft bodies

The TLI burn on Apollo 8 got them up to 35,505 feet per second (38,959 km/h). They went from an altitude of about 185 km to 346.7 km in 5 minutes in
17 seconds. Just 40 minutes after the TLI and they're at an altitude of 12,000 km. At 2 hours and 37 minutes after TLI, they're at an altitude of
41,700 km and have a velocity of 13,932 km/h. At 3 hours and 37 minutes, they're at 54,130 km. At 4 hours and 35 minutes past TLI, they're at
66,600 km. All that is in the flight journal.

And of course they didn't fly through the center of the belts. They were on an orbital inclination of 32 degrees.

Using a diagram from Wikipedia showing the proton flux, we can make a very rough approximation of the areas they passed through:

Distances are all to scale. Times indicate the difference in time from the previous mark.

The inner belt, extending out to a maximum of 9500 km, would have been no problem. They'd be through that in under 25 minutes.

The outer belt also wouldn't have been a problem. They'd be though areas with a flux greater than 10^6 in under 30 minutes. They'd be through
areas with a flux greater than 10^4 in under an hour. Within 2 hours, the flux would be a million times lower than its highest point.

People really need to stop making these rediculous claims. You listed mythbusters in the OP as a group trying to disprove the moon landings. While
they are notorious for incomplete experiments, they tried to disprove the landings but ended up prooving them. This seems to be the pattern for
anyone trying to deny the fact that they actually happened. Why is this such a hard concept for people to grasp. Hell some of the stuff my iphone
can do is more advanced then most of the things on the space shuttle. Not sure where this disbelief in our technology comes from, its as though ppl
still WANT to live in the dark ages

Distances are all to scale. Times indicate the difference in time from the previous mark.

Ive seen such simplified explanation before.
In reality the Apollo craft did not go a straight line did they?

Secondly, you, or NASA, are basically saying that the Apollo missions managed to cover
a third of the distance to the moon in less than half a day?
If they were going so fast, why did it take 3 days to reach the moon and not say 2 days?

And what about the return trip?
How fast were they going and what part of the belts did they traverse?

Originally posted by FoosM
Ive seen such simplified explanation before.
In reality the Apollo craft did not go a straight line did they?

Nope, it wasn't perfectly straight, which is why I said it was a rough
estimate. But given that only covers about a fifth of the total distance covered, it's not a horrible example.

Originally posted by FoosM
Secondly, you, or NASA, are basically saying that the Apollo missions managed to cover
a third of the distance to the moon in less than half a day?

Yes, exactly! Orbital mechanics can blow your mind. All the energy it took to get them to the moon came from that 5 minute and 17 second TLI burn.
Think of it like throwing a baseball straight up. Once the ball leaves your hand, it's got all the energy it going to get. The fastest the ball goes
is at the moment it leaves your hand. Once it starts going up, gravity is the only force acting on it, pulling it down. The ball slows from its
maximum speed, eventually stopping at its highest point. It takes it a lot less time to cover the half of the distance from your hand to its highest
point because that when it's going fastest.

It's the same thing with the Apollo missions. They were essentially thrown up, towards the moon. So yes, they're going to cover the first bit of
the journey faster than the last bit. Now it gets a little more complicated because eventually they start falling towards the moon, but the moon's
gravity is so much less that they fall towards it at a much slower rate than it took for them to leave earth.

Originally posted by FoosM
And what about the return trip?
How fast were they going and what part of the belts did they traverse?

Same deal for the return trip, except it's like dropping a ball. It speeds up as it goes, reaching its fastest point at the bottom of the drop. In
this case, earth was the bottom of the drop.

The TEI was 3 minute and 23 seconds. It got them up to 9,656 km/h. In 55 hours and 16 minutes, they were at an altitude of 35,188 km above earth,
going 15,394 km/h. 34 minutes later they're at 28,236 km going 16,963 km/h. Another 51 minutes and they're at 9,167 km going 25,679 km/h. Another
52 minutes and they're going 39,743 km/h and are at an altitude of 191 km. That's their maximum speed and that's when the reentry starts.

So the traverse times end up being about the same as on the way out, actually a little shorter as they end up going faster coming back than going out.

Second --- Earth's acceleration due to gravity is higher than the Moon's.

At what distance would Earth's gravity have an effect and to what extent?

Earth's gravity ALWAYS has an effect. Acceleration due to gravity at the surface of the earth is 9.8 m/s^2. At the distance of the moon,
the acceleration due to gravity from the earth is 0.00027 m/s^2. Small, but still there. The acceleration varies by the square of the distance. Cut
the distance in half, and the acceleration increases by 4 times.

If we consider a line between the center of the earth and the center of the moon, with the Apollo craft in between, the pull of the earth and the moon
will be roughly equal when the craft is 348,970 km above the surface of the earth and 35,030 km above the surface of the moon. Any closer to earth,
and the earth pulls more on the craft than the moon. Any closer to the moon, and the moon pulls harder. In reality, it's a little more complicated
than that because we're dealing with moving bodies in 3D space, but you get the idea.

That would be very difficult to plan today with all the junk that's up there..
Hitting a small piece of debris at almost 40,000 kmh would not be pretty.

While space junk is a problem, it's not as bad as people
think. I believe there's about 500,000 bits of "junk" bigger than 1cm in size. But lets assume they're all at an altitude of 350 km. The sphere
that encompasses the earth at an altitude of 350 km above the surface has an area of 567,646,095 square kilometers. So that means each bit of junk
has, on average, 1,135 square kilometers around it. That's a radial distance of almost 40 kilometers between each bit. Now take into account
they're not all at the same altitude. So the volume of the space, and the average spacing, goes up from there.

That would be very difficult to plan today with all the junk that's up there..
Hitting a small piece of debris at almost 40,000 kmh would not be pretty.

While space junk is a problem, it's not as bad as people
think. I believe there's about 500,000 bits of "junk" bigger than 1cm in size. But lets assume they're all at an altitude of 350 km. The sphere
that encompasses the earth at an altitude of 350 km above the surface has an area of 567,646,095 square kilometers. So that means each bit of junk
has, on average, 1,135 square kilometers around it. That's a radial distance of almost 40 kilometers between each bit. Now take into account
they're not all at the same altitude. So the volume of the space, and the average spacing, goes up from there.

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